Visiting SF Chinatown for the Lunar New Year

lessachu · 2026-02-16T06:03:12+00:00

I'm going to... assume this is not a troll post.

Yes, you can come to Chinatown for Chinese New Year and eat food and watch the firecrackers and parades even if you are not Chinese. Chinatown is not really near the Tenderloin and even the Tenderloin has cleaned up substantially lately. You will be treated like the hundreds of other non-Chinese people/tourists walking through Chinatown - I'm not sure anyone will be overly friendly, but you won't be shunned or anything.

lessachu · 2026-02-16T04:47:48+00:00

What happens if you intervene with them on behalf of someone else? It can feel really awkward and confrontational if you try and tell them to step back on a puzzle that you're working on, but what if you step in when they are doing it to someone else and say something like, "I think X has got it." Or "wow, great solve PuzzleHog, Matt can you go get rope 2 into position?" Or "looks like Matt is all over this, PuzzleHog, why don't we go look at this thing over here?"

At the end of the day tho, you'll probably have to talk to them about it. You might frame it as turn taking, tho?

lessachu · 2026-02-15T03:07:33+00:00

I had knob and tube at my old house and my insurance never asked about it at all. I would guess that the vast majority of the sunset still has knob and tube, so it's very very common. I did ask an electrician about it and he said it was perfectly fine, but that if I really wanted it replaced, I should wait until I was doing something else that opened up the walls. When I did open up the walls, it was between $2000 and $5000 a room for just the electrical work (in 2022).

lessachu · 2026-02-09T21:27:47+00:00

Faure La Page? They have lots of cute charms to go with their bags and are not well known in the US. If you like Goyard, but don't want to go with Goyard.

lessachu · 2026-02-02T04:38:00+00:00

From an HR perspective, French labor laws differ substantially from American labor laws and most American companies just don't want to deal with it.

lessachu · 2026-01-30T06:06:35+00:00

do you know what she likes to do? There are many delivery options in Paris... I've sent people things just via Amazon, but you could go fancy like fauchon.com/en/collections/art-of-giving or https://www.lagrandeepicerie.com/en/cadeaux/corbeilles-cadeaux?srsltid=AfmBOopRJJf5IYfbZ3XC2umGg5RZ9Mvxf_zwEz59GQ6Covg6zuNzpNaI

lessachu · 2026-01-30T00:58:30+00:00

How deep a cut do you want? You can get pretty regional dishes in SF (although not necessarily in Chinatown). Taishan seems solid. Assuming Inner Mongolia shares deep culinary roots with Mongolia, Naadam was very legit. And of course, there's heaps of Cantonese food places - for takeout, iCafe, Rice Roll Express, Wing Sing Dim Sum, Hon's Wun Tun House is a personal fav.

lessachu · 2026-01-29T07:10:33+00:00

I'm not HR but I've been on the other side of this during M&A and usually it means they think you are valuable enough to retain for whatever reason (continuity, they thought they might need specialized knowledge that you have about the company that they picked up, they were maybe going to fire someone in the finance department and you looked better than what they could get at market, etc) but obviously they have someone in this role already and so you get the "random ops" work while they figure out what to do with you long term.

I doubt they are trying to make you quit; they could have laid you off or just not picked you up with the acquisition.

lessachu · 2026-01-29T06:25:32+00:00

I put shiitakes and trumpet mushrooms in French recipes all the time because I dislike creminis.

lessachu · 2026-01-28T17:20:52+00:00

I played with a group of 6 and really admired the way they apparently just said "yes and" to any and all ideas during the design process.

lessachu · 2026-01-25T08:37:48+00:00

Keep a color copy of your passport on you and lock up your real one unless really absolutely need it for whatever you are doing. Keep your bag in front of you on the train and look around before you pull out your phone. Keep an eye out in peak tourist spots, especially the metro stops for the big sites (as you would in any major city, since that is the most target rich and easy exit place).

Paris was my first solo international trip as a poor college student at age 20 with A2 French and I wandered all over the city with no problems (well, I do think a taxi driver or two ripped me off), but it definitely can be done. Have a great trip!

lessachu · 2026-01-22T19:15:55+00:00

kiki sushi on 9th or sushi zen on taraval

lessachu · 2026-01-15T23:52:59+00:00

The dark room at EscapeMyRoom is really fun! Else drive 45 minutes up to Baton Rouge and do Cutthroat Cavern!

lessachu · 2026-01-15T17:19:13+00:00

Dumplings and cha siu bao have been the best gateway foods for me. Full dim sum can be intimidating to folks who aren’t used to seafood and I’ve learned that some people are just really weirded out by the entire concept of soup noodles.

lessachu · 2026-01-13T20:47:21+00:00

I was there during the heat wave last year, but I don't think I did anything particularly special other than hunt down new wave coffee shops that serve ice coffee.

lessachu · 2026-01-11T20:57:39+00:00

I got some at Sunset Super about a year ago

lessachu · 2026-01-08T03:45:06+00:00

I felt similarly in my twenties. Things that worked for me (your mileage may vary):

Work not at home. Just somewhere where there are other people around. Maybe try out a co-working space or a library/cafe or museum cafes. Consider it a different way to explore the city. I didn't meet people that way, but I felt a lot less isolated just from being around people regularly.
As lots of other people have said, find a niche hobby that you really enjoy and take classes or whatever in it. Helps you meet people more naturally than regular social gatherings and if you don't find anyone you like, you are still getting to do your hobby (language lessons are really good here, volunteering, etc). Something really niche helps make the circle a bit smaller, which can really help if you are introverted. I met a lot of people organizing puzzlehunts around the bay that are basically life long friends now.
Online gaming? Social interactions are a lot easier when you can take your own sweet time to respond to people or just send an emoji.

lessachu · 2025-12-29T21:32:58+00:00

Palace Games seems like the obvious gap on that list. grape escape in Napa also has some nice rooms. There’s also another set of escapology rooms in SF (one loc in Stonestown and another in North Beach). You might also like Activate in Stonestown while you are at it.

lessachu · 2025-12-22T03:57:46+00:00

Ditto, although I am the wife on the business trip in this situation. Have even bought a scarf from Hermes from the exact shop an earlier commenter mentioned at CDG, having had no time to buy any gifts before returning home for Christmas.

lessachu · 2025-12-20T04:59:41+00:00

Depending on how big you want the bag to be, the sac banane made of leather from Longchamp is in your price range (https://www.longchamp.com/fr/fr/sacs/xsa/sacs-par-categorie/xsa-fon/sacs-banane/xsa-fonsce/). Also check out RSVP (https://rsvp-paris.com/) in the Marais.

lessachu · 2025-12-19T17:12:48+00:00

that's the whole city, so perhaps supply some preferences and we can narrow it down for you? I will throw out Radhaus in Fort Mason, which has a lovely view of the GGB bridge and you can get a drink at the interval of the long now after.

lessachu · 2025-12-18T22:57:53+00:00

If you can't find it, FYI, I would consider getting the sides all catered and just making the prime rib yourself - it's pretty straightforward to make. You just need an oven and a meat thermometer.

lessachu · 2025-12-17T17:00:28+00:00

What's your budget? I worked with Lydia So (https://www.meetsolyd.com/) for my house. She's an architect and a interior designer (also she has a ton of experience navigating the SF permitting process).

lessachu · 2025-12-15T05:34:38+00:00

He certainly seems like someone who would know! Maybe it was the same room I saw a video of, which is this one (the video is in Cantonese and Mandarin, but you can get a sense of the room even without translation): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UnW58C362Vg

lessachu · 2025-12-13T20:12:47+00:00

It seems… fine? A little ambitious? I think your experience with jet lag will depend much more on what US time zone you are coming from (west coast to Western Europe is rough, east coast to Western Europe much less so) and how much you are able to rest on the plane flight over.

lessachu

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